SYST542
Decision Support Systems Engineering
Kathryn Blackmond Laskey
Department of Systems Engineering
George Mason University
Course Description
Spring, 2001
This course studies the design of computerized systems to support individual
or organizational decisions. The course teaches a systems engineering approach
to the decision support system (DSS) lifecycle process. A DSS is the end
product of a development process, and it is this process that is key to
successful integration of a DSS into an organization. Any DSS is built
on a theory (usually implicit) of what makes for successful decision support
in the given context. Empirical evaluation of the specific DSS and underlying
theory should be carried on throughout the development process. The course
examines some prevailing theories of decision support, considers the issues
involved in obtaining empirical validation for a theory, and discusses
what if any empirical support exists for the theories considered. Students
design a DSS for a semester project.
Class Email List
Everyone in the class is required to subscribe to the class
email list. The email list will be used to communicate with students
outside of class.
Textbook
Decison Support Systems, Vicki Sauter, Wiley, 1997
Course Requirements
Grades will be based on asynchronous discussion of a weekly "thought question,"
a paper
review, and a group
project, worth 30%, 20%, and 50% of the grade, respectively.
Lecture Notes
Lecture notes for each chapter will be made available before the first
class covering that chapter. You will need to download Adobe Acrobat Reader
to read these lecture notes.
Thought Question
Each week a thought question will be posed to the class for asynchronous
electronic discussion prior to the next class.
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Logistics: The thought question will be posted by mid-morning
the day after class and will be based on issues raised during the previous
class. Each student is required to post at least one comment to the
group forum during the open discussion period from initial posting of the
question until 8:00AM EST Monday morning. Each student must also
send a final response to the instructor by 4:00PM EST on the day of class.
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Header: Posts for open discussion should have the header THQUn
<name>: <subject>. For example, suppose your name is Smith
and you want to post a new idea regarding the human computer interface,
on Thought Question 2. You would type
Subject: THQU2 Smith: HCI
If Jones wanted to respond to your posting, she could hit reply-to-all,
which would automatically include the course listserv and Smith's subject
header, and then edit the subject header to get:
Subject: THQU2 Jones re: Smith: HCI
(If you hit reply-to-all, for courtesy sake edit out the sender's email
address, or else the sender will get two copies, and will be on the cc
list, so will also get multiple copies of any reply-to-all in that thread.)
Posts for the final response should have header Final THQUn <name>
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Content -- Open discussion: To receive full participation
grade, you must submit an open discussion post which has non-trivial content:
e.g., "I agree with Mary Jones," does not count as participation with content.
However, a brief summary of Mary's position, how it contrasts with the
positions given by other students, and your reasons for agreeing with Mary,
will receive full participation grade.
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Content -- Final response:The summary must be less than one typed
page. It may draw on any points made during open discussion.
It must be a self-contained response to the discussion question, written
in your own words.
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Grading: Grading on open discussion will be 50% participation
and 50% content. The content grade will be based both on the final
response and contribution to the open discussion. A total
of 20 points is possible: 10 for participation and 10 for content.
Each student will receive his or her grade by email by the Friday following
submission.
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List protocol suggestions: People may have further suggestions
on list protocol. Please give these the header THQU Protocol.